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Merge All Aliases Topic

No question people are gaming the new owner pricing. That is a certainty.

As for an alias taking a team in a world in which his main profile already has a team, then abandoning it being counter-productive, I suppose that depends. The team I mentioned (mine the previous 6 seasons) lost in the NLCS last season. Fill the world, take out one of the better teams as competiton. All for pennies on the dollar. I don't think that's very far fetched to imagine. At least as realstic as some fool paying 25 bucks twice to play with himself.

The STL Lasagnas in Greenberg have not been checked since 12/6. standupbob sent a sitemail offering to take the team. Can the transfer be made?

From:standupbob
To:MikeT23
Received:1/2/2013 9:15:00 AM
Subject:St Louis team in Greenberg
Message:Hi. I used to own the St Louis frianchise a couple years ago and would love to take it over, as I see its current owner is not keeping it up. If you guys want, and know how to make the switch, let me know.

Posted by crickett13 on 2/11/2013 3:19:00 PM (view original):Even WIS can't always tell. If my 12 year old decides he wants to play I am not getting him his own credit card and a new computer. He will be using the same PC I use and I will be paying with the same card I use to pay for my account.

My son and I use the same computer and credit card. Hes still a little young so I help him with a lot of it. But we are in separate worlds and he only plays GD right now.

Another aspect to think about is there are several owners who co-coach in GD. One guy runs the offense, the other the defense. Often they create a new user name for that. How would you approach those???

I would say co-coaching is their (the owner's) problem, kneeneighbor. The game wasn't really created for that sort of multi-player use. I don't think it is intended for that sort of multi-player use. I don't have a problem with it on it's own (although I do wonder if they're looking for a Special Teams Coordinator...but I must have the Coordinator title), but I don't think WiS owes them a workaround.

I admit the children (or spouse, or deadbeat brother-in-law) in the same house w/same CC is a big issue. How about if all aliases in the same household have to have identifiable similarities. That is, KPMcClave, KPMcClave1, KPMcClave2, etc. This would only be for those same CC situations (aliases not allowed otherwise). To answer the question already being typed...yes, this could still lead to the same problems (I could run all the teams in my house), but at least we'd know who's affiliated with whom.

My overall premise in this thread is that WiS is able to search and gather data for the entire user database. To fairly easily and efficiently find common IP addresses, CC#s, billing adresses, or whatever else they might use to kick people out for using aliases for collusion now. If that is not true, obviously there may be nothing they can do, but I find that very hard to believe. If that overall premise is acurate and they *could* merge all the common aliases in to one account, then the "clumping" of the same household accounts would be easy as a part of that.

You'd loose personalization of the user name, obviously, for the sub-accounts.

I assume some are if they joined, took a team, and disappeared in ST. Is that the case with any of those teams.

I am aware that owners bail. I've been around long enough to have seen my share of mid-season replacment situations and there is clearly something...else going on lately.

I just don't buy that people sign up and lose interest that quickly, other than once in a great whie.

And, once again. It isn't up to me to know it. It's up to WiS.

The first two left before ST started. One of those disappeared before FA ended. The other two were playing horribly.

IMO, $15 isn't a great deal of money. HBD is pretty complicated early on. If I got frustrated, I'd give up my $15 at the drop of a hat. It's an internet game and it needs to be fun. If it's not fun, I'm not wasting my time with it over $15. I think that's what you're seeing not aliases filling worlds and dropping out. If they made a handful of big trades, signed crappy Type A FA or released some good players(who were picked up by the same team at the bottom), I'd think you had a point. As it stands, I think you're seeing new owners try it out, find it's not what they want to do and moving on.

Mike, we can certainly disagree about whether aliases should be removed, about whether or not so-and-so is likely an alias or not, but one thing that you keep trying to force feed that is NOT acurate (and I have poiinted this out at least a couple of times already) is that for an alias to be harmful there has to be some form of collusion ("If they made a handful of big trades, signed crappy Type A FA or released some good players who were picked up by the same team at the bottom)." This does not address my point that aliases signing up *only* to fill worlds (with no intent to collude) is also damaging to the game/world.

Do you or do you not agree that (assuming for this purpose the owner is an alias) this type of use of an alias is harmful?

If you don't agree, i'd be itnerested in your response as to why (and not another diversion back to the most common historical abuses of an alias account).

If you do agree, then again, that is a reason for the powers that be to look at merging aliases. It doesn't matter if you or I can tell for certain if SimmySimster6973 is an alias or not, because WiS *can* (with the same household discussion noted).

This new abuse of aliases (on top of the more historical and ovious abuses) is what spurred me to start this thread to begin with. So, I certainly do not want it overlooked.

Theoretically, if I decide that I really like world X so much that I decide to run an AL team and an NL team, and I make every effort to not collude with myself (go with identical scouting budgets, no trades between my teams, no tanking of one team, etc.) . . . what is the harm other than appearance (should anybody find out)?

Not that I'm endorsing this . . . I'm not. I'm just curious as to the thought behind your assertion that this would be "damaging to the game/world".

Update on Hall of Fame. First off, this *proves* nothing, but it sure is "interesting."

The "new" owner who took over my team has not signed in for 6 days now (they are in FA/Coach signing). So far that isn't an issue with the other 2 newly created accounts.

The "interesting" thing is that 2 of the 3 owners who signed up (only?) to join this world, have team nicknames without any capitalization. Last season, one of the teams for which we had to find a replacement owner had that same format (Hartford seas). In the past two seasons there is only one other team in Hall of Fame that shares that particular naming format. The Commissioner's.

As I said, proves nothing, but there is too much smoke not to look in to this issue.

Simply put, I don't know why anyone would want to run two teams in one world if not to increase their chances of winning UNLESS it's just so the world can roll. If they run the teams independently, which would be EXTREMELY difficult, I don't see the problem. If one has 20m HS/0 college or a 20 ADV/0 ADV, there's probably something going on. But, if they have identical budgets, don't cross-reference everything, throw games to help the other or use one team to "set-up" a trade for the other, it's hard to think they're a problem.

Now, why do you think that someone who isn't cheating with an alias, in any way, is bad for a world?

FWIW, I'm not fond of the "brother-in-law", "roommate", "co-worker", etc, etc owning teams in the same world but, if there's no evidence of cheating, I don't know why I wouldn't want those guys playing in a world together.

tec, you're missing my point. What is damaging to the world in the latest response I posted is simply an alias taking a team with no intention to do *anything* with it. Only to fill the world. The team sits there, misses FA and off-season stuff, etc. and eventually gets a replacement owner. That is what I said is damaging (most recently). That is, I suspect with 2 of the 4 owners Mike posted and the owner at least who took over my team in HoF (and we'll see what happens to the other 2 "new" guys there).

To answer the question you aksed, it fits in to the "can of worms" category. It's just another example people would use of "legitimate" alias use, but it keeps the door wide open for ongoing abuse. No aliases at all closes that door.